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<title>Haunted By The Ghosts Of The Past And Present (Literally) by gh0st1nn1t</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237344">Haunted By The Ghosts Of The Past And Present (Literally)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gh0st1nn1t/pseuds/gh0st1nn1t'>gh0st1nn1t</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides Murder Mystery [SEQUEL OUT] [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Has Panic Attacks, Epilogue, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Hurt Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Hurt Deceit | Janus Sanders, Near Death Experiences, Past Character Death, Survivor Guilt, Tags Are Hard, Theyre Traumatised</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:06:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gh0st1nn1t/pseuds/gh0st1nn1t</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since moving to the woods, Virgil had been on edge, more than usual. After barely escaping the murder castle with his life, he had been paranoid, hence why he isolated himself. Occasionally, he would see the shadows morph into the bodies of the victims of those who didn't escape. He brushed them off as hallucinations. But then they started breaking things and screaming, and all he could do was call the only other survivor in a blind panic.</p><p>This is the story of the two survivors of 'Poisoned Parties And Rotten Royals' and their struggle with the spirits remaining.</p><p>[SEQUEL TO POISONED PARTIES AND ROTTEN ROYALS. READ THAT FIRST OR U'LL BE CONFUSED]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anxiety | Virgil Sanders &amp; Deceit | Janus Sanders, The &amp; means PLATONIC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides Murder Mystery [SEQUEL OUT] [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910287</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>big thanks to Mega_Oofs for inspiring this!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Virgil had been paranoid since he had escaped that god-forsaken castle. To be fair, it was to be expected that he would be left with trauma. No one watches 6 people die and find out their best friend was the murderer, <em> and </em> that they hated them, and left with no problems.</p><p>He bounced his leg anxiously as he scribbled in an old notebook, attempting to recreate the hallucination he had mere hours before. He smeared the graphite across the page, attempting to recreate the blood he had seen.</p><p>All he was doing was washing off strawberries, and suddenly the strawberry juice looked too much like blood, and Roman's dead body was outside the window, banging on the glass with bruised and bloodied hands in a feeble attempt to get in. Virgil rubbed his eyes, and it was gone, so he chalked it up to a hallucination. </p><p>Of course, it wasn't the only hallucination he had after escaping, they were constant, daily at least.</p><p>Once he had been eating breakfast at the dinner table, and he looked up from his plate to see Remus' slumped over body across from him, blood soaking the table. There was a sickening dent in his head. Slowly, he sat up, showing the red that trickled down his face, along with a devilish grin. "Boo!" He yelled, and Virgil tumbled off his chair. When he sat back up, the figment of his imagination was gone, taking the pools of blood along with it.</p><p>Another time, he had been painting his walls, and suddenly, the black paint was gone, replaced with the bricks of the castle, the horrifying messages from the past were scrawled over all of his walls, smudged in places, and dotted with blood. Virgil rubbed his eyes violently, making his vision darken for a few moments before seeing clearly, the black paint covering the walls, ominous messages gone.</p><p>Logan’s was horrible too. He would often pop up when Virgil was doing mundane tasks, like washing up or planting things. He always had the knife still sticking out of his chest, his entire body soaked in blood. He would talk to him calmly and in a friendly manner about normal things, except he would sometimes choke on his blood, and Virgil hated to see it after having a plesant chat with the hallucination.</p><p>Occasionally, he would see Remy’s dead form, poison dripping down his chin as he begged Virgil to tell him why he hadn’t stopped Remy from drinking it.</p><p>He had been debating calling Janus, who's number was still pinned on the noticeboard, as Janus had said if Virgil ever needed anything to call. But Virgil didn't see why hallucinations were enough of a reason to call him, because there was nothing Janus could do. </p><p>From the moment he woke up to the moment he fell asleep, the visions plagued him, refusing to ever leave. Patton's ones were the worst, closely followed by Thomas', but for completely different reasons.</p><p>When he hallucinated Thomas, he was either calmly sat beside him, reminding Virgil that there was nothing he could do, disappearing into fog once Virgil tried to touch him, but other times...Well, he would be screaming and crying and demanding to know why Virgil didn't save anyone, and why he allowed Thomas to die, cowering in a corner instead of helping. Virgil could never tell which one was worse.</p><p>But Patton's...those left Virgil trembling for days. He would pound on the walls, fists sinking through, screaming and laughing maniacally, claiming he had never really died, and that he was on his way to finish Virgil off, and that this time, he would be left with worse than a limp. He would grin evilly, swearing that he would crawl out of his grave simply to get his revenge on Virgil, threatening him with the knife Virgil had stabbed him with. </p><p>Virgil simply made an effort to ignore the hallucinations, then again, living with only figments of your imagination for two years had given him a long time to figure out how to deal with them.</p><p>But then ignoring them stopped working.</p><p>“Virgil~” </p><p>He bit his lip harshly, not taking his eyes away from his computer, forcing himself to be completely oblivious to Emile’s mangled form looming over his shoulder.</p><p>“Awe, are you mad at me? I only did it so I could understand how killer’s minds work!” Emile pouted.</p><p>Still ignoring him, Virgil continued typing, watching the movie in the corner of his screen, breath hitched in his throat as he felt the hallucination’s blood dripping onto him, the liquid warm against his cold skin. He gingery touched it, seeing nothing there, and exhaling.</p><p>“If you keep ignoring me, I’ll just have to make you see me!” Emile cackled, wrapping his shattered arms around Virgil’s shoulders.</p><p>Virgil felt sick as he felt the freezing skin against his, shutting his eyes tightly, and opening them again, silently praying for it to be gone. But it wasn’t.</p><p>Emile sighed, snatching the computer from Virgil’s lap and throwing it across the room, grinning when it crumbled into pieces against the wall. </p><p>Virgil’s breath hitched. The hallucinations had never broken anything before, and the broken glass on the floor sure seemed real when it sliced his finger. Emile giggled, “Uh oh!” Then he simply faded back into the shadows. </p><p>He sat there, struggling to breathe for a solid ten minutes, hyperventilating and sobbing, curled up in a ball. As soon as he was able to breathe, he jumped over his sofa, and grabbed his phone, hands shaking violently as he typed in the characters of Janus’ phone number.</p><p>Little did he know, Janus had been experiencing the same thing. After surviving the whole castle thing, he had bought a decently sized home right by the water, only around thirty minutes away from the therapy sessions he attended weekly. His friends had slowly drifted away from him after he suddenly gave up the throne and isolated himself, despite them knowing damn well what he lived through. Janus dropped them the moment they mocked him flinching at a knife. To be honest, being alone hadn't helped him, but he knew if he pushed through it, he would turn out okay. </p><p>Hopefully.</p><p>Normally he would be waking up in a cold sweat, hyperventilating with Patton standing over him with a knife, no Virgil to save him this time. He would grin manically, swinging the knife down, and then disspearing into thin air, and Janus would start his day, struggling to get over what he had just experienced.</p><p>Occasionally he saw Remus sitting in the corner of the rooms, begging for Janus' forgiveness while blood pooled around him. He would struggle to explain why he joined forces with Patton all while blood dripped from his head onto the floor, practically screaming for Janus to forgive him. He would pound his fists aginst his head, calling himself stupid for getting involved with the murder plans. He would sob and shout, desperately attempting to get Janus to look at him with anything other than betrayl in his eyes.</p><p>Sometimes he would see Virgil's body on the floor, knife still stuck in his hip, blood pooling beneath him. He would imagine what would've happened if Virgil didn't wake up after Patton stabbed him and tossed him aside like a ragdoll. His eyes were half-lidded, lips parted as blood slowly trickled out of them. Janus always made an effort to call Virgil to 'chat' after hallucinating that one.</p><p>Roman would sometimes be sat in random places, staring at Janus with a deadpan expression, neck snapped, bruised and bloody, and ask him why Janus accused him. His eyes would follow Janus until he slowly merged back with the shadows. The calm look on his face was haunting. His hands were always in front of him, still bound tightly by tape, demanding to know why Janus hadn't objected against the whole 'makeshift handcuff' idea that got him killed.</p><p>The only hallucination he didn't hate was Logan. The knife sticking out of his chest made him feel sick, but all Logan did was sit beside him and chat calmly about seemingly random things. He could handle seeing that one, if he made an effort to ignore all of the blood. All of the other figments of his imagination were either too violent and threatening or too desperate for him to bare being in the same room with for over ten minutes.</p><p>It was unusual for him to hallucinate Remy, as he had barely known the man before he died. His hallucinations were the rarest and most far apart, simply consisting of Remy with the glass in his hand, collapsing onto the floor moments later. Janus could handle those ones, simply stepping over the body he imagined and continuing what he was doing.</p><p>Emile's was violent too, sometimes threatening him or simply grinning, eyes wide. His body was mangled from the fall, so whenever Janus hallucinated him, he felt like he was going to vomit. </p><p>He had taken up reading to try and distract himself from the hallucinations that followed him around. It wasn't even unexpected when Logan popped up beside him, identical book in hand, holding a conversation about what they were reading as if there wasn't a literal dagger in his heart. Sometimes his books would be scattered in places he didn't leave them, but he chalked that up to his imagination. The therapy sessions had never really helped. A survivior of a murder mystery taking place in a castle was not your average patient. Plus, Janus had a fear of therapists after seeing how Emile was willing to murder simply to know how a killers mind worked.</p><p>Then he got the call from Virgil, hysterical and sobbing, and he booked a plane ticket, silently thanking whatever gods there were that the flight time was only just over an hour.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. ii</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>sorry for the short chapter lol, i wanted to post one but im not too motivated for this one bc i dont have the entire plot outlined yet, just the end</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The moment Janus arrived outside of the cabin, he saw Virgil sat on a log outside, bouncing his leg and biting his nails.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Virgil, you okay?” He asked, seeing the paranoia practically oozing out of him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His head shot up, “Thank fuck you’re here. I saw Patton, and I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me again, but he smashed my laptop and I need to make sure this isn’t just some dragged out hallucination,” he rambled, leaping to his feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Again?” Janus asked, unaware that Virgil had been going through the same as him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No time to explain,” Virgil waved him off, opening his door, gesturing to the pile of shattered glass and the bent frame of his laptop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Janus paused, taking in the scene. “Yeah, this wasn’t a hallucination,” he reassured him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then how the hell-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, the band’s back together!” Remus appeared on the middle of the dining table, legs crossed and bloody teeth glinting in the light. “You know, I thought you both were smarter than this! It’s not hard to figure this out, you know,” He yawned, blood trickling from his mouth and down his neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Virgil glanced at Janus, making sure he was seeing the same thing. Judging by his clenched fists, wide eyes and jaw practically on the floor, Virgil knew it wasn’t just him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what is it?” Janus asked carefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus snorted, gliding over to stand in front of them, “You know, both of you are </span>
  <em>
    <span>sooo </span>
  </em>
  <span>obsessed with conspiracy theories and the supernatural, yet when you’re haunted, it takes you two months to work out!” He giggled, floating over their heads and zooming outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” Virgil mumbled, hands trembling in his pockets.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, okay, no big deal, we survived a murder mystery castle with </span>
  <em>
    <span>three </span>
  </em>
  <span>killers, we can deal with a few ghosts,” Janus spoke quietly, trying to convince himself more than Virgil.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, but can you?” Roman appeared, leaning against one of the pillars, his mangled form making bile rise up in their throats. He giggled, flexing his wrists beneath the thick layers of tape. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you’d be rooting for us! You weren’t part of it,” Virgil crossed his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You two voted to put on this tape,” he held up his wrists, showing off multiple broken bones and blood stains, “And that got me killed. I blame you two. I’m rooting against you. Bye bitches,” and with that, he sunk into the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is fucking insane,” Virgil scoffed. “Murder mystery, and now </span>
  <em>
    <span>ghosts</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Are we in Scooby Doo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Janus bit his lip, looking at where Roman had been stood moments before. “We need to figure out how to get rid of them. We can’t just run. They’ll follow us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And how do you know this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If they’ve been haunting us both at the same time, it’s clear that distance isn't the problem.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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